Author: RJ Rushmore

RJ Rushmore has been involved in contemporary art as a writer, curator, photographer, arts administrator, and fan since 2008. With a focus on street art, graffiti, and public art, RJ facilitates and promotes catalytic and ambitious art outdoors, in galleries, and online. He founded the street art blog Vandalog and has worked at The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and Creative Time. Currently, RJ is Co-Curator of Art in Ad Places.
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PublicAdCampaign’s Madrid takeover

Jordan Seiler. Translation - Make love to your city, caress and hold her tightly.

On March 30th, Jordan Seiler and some Madrid-based helpers disrupted bus-shelter advertisements throughout Madrid for PublicAdCampaign‘s latest takeover, MaSAT (Madrid Street Advertising Takeover). Over 100 artists and everyday people from around the world contributed to MaSAT by supplying text which was then printed on the posters that Jordan and his crew installed. Here are a few of my favorites:

TrustoCorp
Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere. Translation - advertisement for a bad movie
Joe Iurato
Logan Hicks

And the MaSAT project is particularly interesting to me because Jordan is participating in the Street Communications panel that I am moderating this weekend at Haverford College and because both the Schillers and I (Marc and Sara will also be on the panel) participated in MaSAT by sending some text:

Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective
RJ (me). Translation - Hi Carmen. I hope you’ll smile today!

Photos courtesy of PublicAdCampaign

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Judith Supine solo at New Image Art this month

Judith Supine is one of my all-time favorite street artists, both for his indoor and outdoor work, which is why I am overjoyed to write this post. Supine has a solo show opening next week at New Image Art in LA. I’ve never been to a Supine solo show before, but by all accounts they have been something very unique. I expect this to be the case once again. Ladyboy opens on April 13th and runs for a month. While most people will say that the highlight of art in April will be MOCA’s street art show, I think Ladyboy may turn out to be almost equally unmissable.

Last time I was in NYC, I had the chance to speak with Supine, and he’s definitely got a few things up his sleeve for this event… One thing I saw when I met with him was an unfinished work that had me simultaneously laughing my ass off and absolutely disgusted, but in a good way. Arrested Motion has a preview of Ladyboy which I highly suggest checking out in full, but I’ve taken one image from their post because it is the completed version of the image that I found so interesting. It’s called “Cream Pie in the Sky”…

Photo coutesy of Arrested Motion

Photo courtesy of Arrested Motion

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David Ellis speaking at muraLAB in Philadelphia

Photo by Lord Jim

David Ellis is going to be Philadelphia soon for a talk at muraLAB, “an experimental creativity hub” within the Mural Arts Program. The talk, Thought Experiments, will take place on April 14th at 6pm. I wis I could be in two places at once, because I’ll be in LA then, but Philly residents should definitely check out this event. I’ve only met Ellis once, but it was one of my most memorable conversations of my life. Make sure to RSVP though by emailing muraLAB@muralarts.org. More info on the muraLAB website.

Photo by Lord Jim

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Luna Park shoots Dan Witz

Sometimes a good photo can really make a piece of street art, as silly as that sounds. After all, so much of the street art that most people see these days is what they see online. Anyway, this photo of a piece by Dan Witz is by Luna Park, and I really like it.

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Weekend link-o-rama

Ripo for the LA Freewalls Project

Before I head out to Vincent Michael Gallery for the opening of the Robots Will Kill show in a few minutes, here’s what’s been going on that I haven’t mentioned on Vandalog…

Photo by Ripo

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And it begins: Art In The Streets

Patti Astor at Keith Haring's Fun Gallery show, 1983, Photo by Eric Kroll

If you’re the Jeffrey Deitch or museum-hating type, the next few weeks are not going to be your favorite weeks, at least not when it comes to Vandalog posts. I’m gonna be talking a lot about this topic. I could hardly be more excited for MOCA‘s upcoming Art In The Streets show, and some substantive information about the show is finally starting to come out:

  • First of all, what lots of people have been asking for: a solid and confirmed opening date. Art In The Streets opens on April 17th.
  • There will be 50 artist installations including Futura, Margaret Kilgallen, Swoon, Shepard Fairey and Os Gêmeos. Arrested Motion has some photos of Shepard’s installation process.
  • The MOCA iteration includes a lot of West Coast stuff like Cholo graffiti and writers like Revok and Saber.
  • Oh, clarification on the last point: The show movies to The Brooklyn Museum next March. Presumably the show will be refocused a bit NYC graffiti for that iteration.
  • The show will include some mini-shows within it including a space dedicated to The Fun Gallery, a RAMELLZEE installation and Todd James, Barry McGee, and Steve Powers’ new iteration of their legendary Street Market show.
  • Because MOCA is looking at skateboarding as art on the streets too, there will be a custom skate ramp in the museum and Nike’s skateboarding team will be skating there throughout the run of the show.
  • There will be a film festival component to the show.

So yeah. Sounds good. Can’t wait for the opening. If this show succeeds, it could be the American equivalent of Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum in terms of impact.

Here’s some more preview images:

Chaz Bojorquez, Señor Suerte tag with ‘veterano/veterana’ roll calls, Arroyo Seco River, Los Angeles, 1975, photo by Blades Bojorquez
RAMMELLZEE, Battle Station, New York City, 2005, photo by Charlie Ahearn

Photos courtesy of MOCA